


Maybe It's Red Like Roses

by DazzleYourMindsEye



Series: When In The End You Fail To Save Them [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Blood and Injury, Ruby loses an eye, but can be read separately, description of injury, part 2 of a previous fic, volume 8 speculation, volume 8 spoilers, well maybe not sweet, white rose if you squint, wrote something a little short and sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27449155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DazzleYourMindsEye/pseuds/DazzleYourMindsEye
Summary: The moment Ruby’s blood curdling scream split through the icy air, Weiss knew deep in her bones that it would haunt her until her dying days.
Series: When In The End You Fail To Save Them [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2005444
Comments: 10
Kudos: 57





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and happy RWBY season everyone! So this is a little speculative fic I thought of while working on a larger piece and thought, hey? Why not lol
> 
> I thought this would pair up nicely with my other fic, When In The End You Fail To Save Them, even though this can be read separately. I wrote that fic at the finale of V7, and now this one at the beginning of V8. Kinda poetic, huh? This is also my first time ever writing for Weiss, and I hope I captured her voice well.
> 
> Enjoy, and remember to stay safe and healthy out there!
> 
> (p.s. biden won hell yeah)

The moment Ruby’s blood curdling scream split through the icy air, Weiss knew deep in her bones that it would haunt her until her dying days.

She saw her team leader fall, saw the flash of red and black almost in slow motion from across the flat plain of the landing zone, felt herself reach out as if she suddenly had Ruby’s semblance and could bound across the space in an instant.

But she couldn’t, and Weiss could only watch.

Ruby crumpled like a wilted flower, her cape bloody red against the snow. A massive beast stood over her and snarled, bloody claws raised against the sky for one more blow. But it never landed.

Weiss saw red as she summoned a glyph beneath her feet and launched herself across the landing zone with a sound almost like a roar, Myrtenaster held at the ready to pierce the monster’s black heart.

Weiss growled and watched it dissolve into smoke with a sick kind of satisfaction when a whimper reached her ears. A whimper so quiet she might not have heard it if she wasn’t so attuned to Ruby’s voice.

She turned, feeling like her feet were stuck in thick mud or molasses. Ruby lay curled in a tight ball on the cold ground, hands clamped like a vise over her the left side of her face. Weiss could see a thick stream of dark red blood leaking from between her clenched fingers and down her cheek to stain the collar of her shirt.

Suddenly time seemed to catch up all at once in a rush, and Weiss threw her blade to the side to collapse to her knees beside the crumpled form of her team leader.

“Ruby? Talk to me.” She hated the sound of her own voice, its quiet gentleness when she wanted to scream out loud to the heavens.

Ruby whimpered again, a small sound strangled by agony. Weiss flinched.

Off in the distance across the tundra she could see the rest of the team clearing out the last of the Grimm and the massive, dim shape of Amity Arena hovering far above. Weiss felt a flash of anger, directed at no one. How dare the universe keep moving when Ruby couldn’t? Couldn’t it feel how the earth shuddered? Or was it just her?

Weiss lay her hand on Ruby’s shuddering shoulder, gripping almost too tight. “Ruby? Just lie still okay? We’ll… we’ll get help?”

She hated how that sounded like a question rather than an answer.

She leaned closer toward Ruby’s face, but her team leader flinched and continued to clench her one visible eye tight. Weiss found herself missing its silver light.

“Just… let me look at it, alright? I need to see how bad it is.” Weiss almost subconsciously began to stroke Ruby’s upper arm, hoping to impart some small amount of comfort.

Ruby gasped and gave a tiny shake of her head, like a small child. The throbbing pain somewhere in Weiss’s chest got worse.

“It’s okay it’s okay, I won’t touch, I just need to see...” Weiss gently tugged on Ruby’s wrist, but she resisted. Ruby always was stronger than her.

“Ruby, please...” Weiss struggled to keep the thickness in her throat from leaking into her voice, but she wasn’t very successful.

A sliver of silver cracked open and locked onto Weiss’s blue. Ruby’s whimpers quieted, but each breath wheezed out in pain.

“It’s okay. I’m right here, I’m right here...” This time the lump in Weiss’s throat was too much and her eyes burned with tears.

Ruby’s face twisted in a grimace. “W-Weiss?”

“Yes?” Weiss said softly, with a quietness that belied the urgency that seemed to thrum in her blood.

Ruby’s eye clenched shut again, and her small body shuddered beneath Weiss’s hand. “I – it _hurts_.”

Weiss sucked in a sharp breath but forced her face into a wobbly smile, meant to be reassuring. “I know, I know. Just… hold on. For me? Focus on breathing.”

Weiss slowly breathed in, then out. Repeating the process until she was sure the other girl was breathing with her. Ruby’s raspy with pain and Weiss’s shakier than she would ever admit, but soon they were breathing in and out together.

At the sound of familiar shouts getting closer, Weiss leaned her forehead on Ruby’s quivering shoulder. “We’re gonna be alright. We have to be...”

“Weiss!”

She didn’t raise her head, even as she felt Blake collapse in the snow beside her.

She didn’t look up, even as the golden glow of Jaune’s semblance filled her vision, soon replaced by Ruby’s own scarlet aura.

Ruby’s breath evened out, the painful wheezing receding, but Weiss felt like hers was still being stolen from her lungs. She listened closely to the quiet murmurs of her teammates around her while carefully helping Ruby sit up in the snow, hand still clamped on her shoulder in a death grip.

Ruby’s hand still covered her injury, but this time Weiss was able to gently coax it away. She gasped sharply, then tried a cough to cover it up.

Three long claw marks raked harshly down the left side of Ruby’s face, splitting her brow and reaching all the way down to her cheekbone – only partially healed by her rejuvenated aura. What was left of her eye was a bloody mess, still oozing slowly down her jaw and neck.

“ _Shit.”_

Weiss almost whipped around to hiss at Jaune’s _completely_ _inappropriate_ exclamation, when Ruby gave a weak chuckle. “It’s...it’s that bad, huh?”

Weiss swallowed back her instant denial. With careless disregard she ripped a strip of blue cloth from the bottom edge of her coat and pressed it gently but firmly to Ruby’s eye. Flinching at her yelp. “Keep pressure on it. Your aura should take care of the heavy damage but the rest...” Weiss swallowed against the growing lump in her throat. “I don’t know.”

Ruby grimaced and nodded. “We… we have to make it to the arena.”

“Ruby...” Weiss couldn’t name the emotion that filled her voice, but it seemed to make Ruby’s spine straighten.

“We have to.” Ruby shakily got to her feet while arranging the blue cloth to wrap securely around her head. “We _have_ to.”

Ruby took one step and buckled, groaning. But before she could hit the ground Weiss darted under her arm and tugged it over her shoulder.

“If you’re going to _insist_ , I suppose I could go with you.” Weiss spoke with a matter of fact tone, as if they were back at Beacon in Professor Port’s class instead of watching Ruby’s scarlet blood drip on the pure white snow.

Ruby shifted against her, and Weiss saw Blake tuck herself under Ruby’s other arm to mirror Weiss’s position.

“We’re going together.” Blake’s flattened ears and slight baring of her teeth garnered no argument, and they slowly started forward. Jaune and Nora needed no prompting as they both jogged ahead to clear the way.

Weiss stared ahead at the looming arena, Ruby’s warmth pressing into side, and sent up a prayer to gods she didn’t believe in.

_Please, let this work._


	2. The Pillars Collapse In Shame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yang learns of Ruby's injury and wrestles with her guilt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHA! Surprise second chapter that no one asked for but you are getting anyway!
> 
> I started thinking about what Yang's reaction would be to hearing about Ruby's injury, and how she would certainly feel guilty for not being there to protect her sister, even though her decision to focus on the people of Mantle wasn't the wrong one. So here's a part two!
> 
> As always I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy out there, and thanks for reading!

“ _Yang, it’s Ruby.”_

Yang heaved the struggling sabyr over her shoulders and _threw_ it against a shattered wall, where it snarled in one final burst before splattering into smoke.

“ _Yang, it’s Ruby.”_

Blake’s words, spoken with almost agonizing gentleness over the small radio, rang over and over again in Yang’s mind, like some sick broken record. She didn’t bother with the rest of the pack she could see rounding the corner, but continued sprinting down the abandoned street, dodging fallen rubble and damaged vehicles.

“ _It’s Ruby.”_

Her panting breathes burned in her chest as she threw herself behind a building to avoid one of Ironwood’s hovering scout robots, its single yellow eye combing the rubble for movement. She sat, waiting for it to pass, and unwelcome thoughts began to well up as if from an open wound. Ruby? Why her? Why wasn’t Yang at her side? _Why wasn’t she there?_

At last she turned onto a familiar street and spotted the inconspicuous safehouse door, and her boots skidded on the stone and she wrenched the door open, not bothering to close it behind her.

The first person she spotted was Blake, but the usual feeling of relief when she laid eyes on her partner was drowned out by the cacophony of noise and panic that clambered in her ears.

“ _Where?”_ Yang gasped, not realizing until this moment how out of breath she was.

Blake stood from where she was sitting, one hand reaching toward her. “Yang...”

“Where?” Yang strode forward and seized Blake’s shoulders with a kind of desperation.

Blake seized her wrists with a firm but gentle hold. “Yang, just breathe, she’s alive, she’ll be fine, Weiss and Maria are with her.”

Yang wanted to shake her. No, things couldn’t be fine, her baby sister was _hurt_ and she wasn’t there to protect her like she’d _promised…_

Blake’s voice faded into a murmur, like Yang was hearing her from underwater. The room started to spin, and she tasted bile in her throat. Yang vaguely felt Blake guide her into a chair but her touch felt far away and muffled.

She had though she was doing right, doing good by splitting off to help those people, but now her sister was hurt, hurt because she wasn’t there to protect her. Hurt because like an _idiot_ Yang had left her behind. Their last conversation and Ruby’s hurt face replayed over and over and _over_ again on the back of her eyelids.

“No, no, Yang, don’t say that.” Blake’s pleading cut through the fog like a knife. Yang hadn’t realized she’d been talking out loud.

“Yang, you did what you could where you could. There is no shame in that. Do you hear me?” Blake’s hands, still gripping Yang’s wrists, tugged until she was grasping them both together and stroking her thumbs across the backs of her hands. “There wasn’t anything you could have done. It happened so fast -”

“What happened?” Yang croaked. Gods, her voice sounded broken even to her own ears.

Blake’s gaze flicked away, and the bottom dropped out of Yang’s stomach. “She… took a pretty big hit. One of her eyes is damaged badly, but I don’t know the details. But Maria’s in there, and if there’s anyone who knows about eye injuries, it’s her.”

One of her eyes? Oh gods, _Ruby.._.

Yang stood abruptly and pulled her hands out of Blake’s, not gently. “Where is she? I need to see her.”

Blake’s expression caused something in her chest to pulse painfully, but Blake just nodded and tilted her head toward another side door. “In there.”

Yang didn’t hesitate to stride to the door and shoulder it open, revealing what must have been a store room converted into a makeshift medical room by Pietro. The man himself was over by a short desk lit by a flickering desk lamp, feverishly working on something that Yang couldn’t see from the doorway. The familiar red of Ruby’s cape drew her eye to the corner, where Weiss stood vigil beside a metal-frame cot. Ruby lay on her side, facing away from the door, but Yang could see Maria standing by her head, speaking something in low tones.

The room was quiet, so Yang’s sharp intake of breath sounded unnaturally loud. Weiss’s head whipped around to make eye contact, and Yang was across the room in three long strides.

Oddly enough the first thing Yang noticed were several odd stains on Weiss’s pale blue skirts, usually so impeccable. As she got closer she could see they were dark brownish red, like blood. Ruby’s blood…

The bile in her throat suddenly threatened to overflow, and Yang swallowed harshly.

Weiss stepped forward and halted Yang in her tracks with a firm hand on the center of her chest. “Hold on.”

Yang almost snarled at her, but rearranged her face into pleading instead. “Weiss, I know what I said earlier -”

“Don’t even start. It’s not that.” Weiss took a firm hold of Yang’s upper arm and dragged her further away.

“She wants to get out there again.” Weiss hissed, releasing her hold on Yang’s bicep. “Thinks she’s useless in here, says she isn’t helping by just ‘laying around’”. Weiss didn’t make the gesture, but Yang could hear the quotation marks in her voice. “She needs to let her aura work on healing her injury, and she can’t do that while out there.”

Weiss’s face shifted from scowling to something more vulnerable. “Maybe you can convince her to rest a little. Gods know you need a chance to sit down too.” Weiss’s icy gaze flicked down to Yang’s torn and soot stained jumpsuit.

Yang frowned and stared down at her snow crusted boots, already leaving puddles as the snow melted. “I… Weiss...”

“I know, I know.” Weiss gave her a small smile and an understanding nod. With one last touch to her shoulder Weiss swept out of the room a little too fast, citing over her shoulder that she was taking Blake back out to the sight of the crater, and to call over the radio when she was ready to join.

And then all that was left was the scratch of Pietro’s pencil and Ruby’s strained breathing. Yang swallowed, and turned toward the cot, where Maria was already watching her with her eerie blue gaze.

Yang almost flinched. Without a word, but with one last pat on the arm, Maria stepped around her to join Pietro at the table, and strike up a low conversation – clearly to try and give the two young women a semblance of privacy.

Yang swallowed against her dry throat again, and pulled up a nearby stool that creaked under her weight when she sat down. Ruby stirred in her cot and one eye cracked open. The other covered in a thick white bandage, secured with pale medical tape. Dark red lines peeked out of the edges, both down her cheek and above her brow. The wounds had closed, but the flesh still looked angry underneath Yang’s tense scrutiny, inflamed and swollen.

_That’s going to scar_ , was Yang’s first thought, and she flinched. A memory leapt to the front of her mind unbidden, a memory of a smaller Ruby with a skinned knobby knee, proudly declaring that she thought scars were _cool_ and did Yang think that her knee would scar? Didn’t girls think scars were cool?

“Yang?”

Ruby’s slightly slurred voice broke her out of her reminiscing, and Yang gave her an unsteady smile. “Hey, Rubes.”

Ruby blinked and slowly, agonizingly pushed herself to sit up. Yang watched her for a brief second, debating with herself, then she sighed and helped her sister sit on the edge of the cot. Once she was upright Ruby blinked and squinted at Yang, as if she couldn’t quite see her clearly.

“How – how are you feeling?” Yang struggled to keep her voice level.

Ruby blinked again, then grimaced. Yang watched the skin on her cheek pull at the scars with a lead weight in her stomach.

“I feel like I’ve been swallowed and spat out by a Leviathan. Pietro...Pietro says that’s because my aura is working overtime to heal me. Or maybe it’s the painkillers.” Ruby swayed where she sat, and Yang’s hand jolted forward to catch her if she fell. But Ruby’s balance corrected itself automatically, and she straightened.

Slowly, hesitantly, her hand raised from her lap to touch the bottom of the longest scar with a feather light fingertip. Ruby visibly swallowed and Yang saw her shoulders shudder.

“We...we sent up Amity. But I don’t know if… if the message got out. If it worked.” Ruby frowned, and her eye looked suspiciously wet. “This could have been for _nothing._..”

Yang was already shaking her head as soon as Ruby started speaking. “ _No_. Someone heard it, they had to have.”

Yang heaved herself up (the muscles in her thighs protested and _damn_ it might have been a mistake to sit down) and sat down heavily beside Ruby on the cot. Slowly, cautiously, she wrapped her arms around her sister in a hug. Ruby leaned into her, her breath hitching in her chest.

They sat like that for a time, then Ruby sniffed again. “Weiss told you to try and convince me to stay here, didn’t she?”

Yang tense, but didn’t let go. “Yes.”

Ruby pulled away, frowning. “Yang, I can’t just sit in here while you guys are out there.”

“You’re **not** just sitting here.” Yang cupped Ruby’s face, both hands on the sides of her jaw. “You’re **healing**. That’s what’s important. You won’t be of use to _anyone_ if you can barely stand.”

Ruby frowned and opened her mouth as if to protest, but Yang shook her head. “Uh uh. None of that. Big sister’s orders.”

That finally brought a small, barely there smile to Ruby’s face. “Fine. One more hour.”

Yang pursed her lips. “Three.”

Ruby’s eye narrowed. “One and a half.”

“Two.”

Ruby pouted slightly, but Yang saw the moment she conceded. “Fine, two. But after that you can’t stop me.”

Yang felt how her smile grew fond, and she ruffled Ruby’s hair even as she mentally prepared herself for the scolding Weiss was surely going to rain down on them both. “Deal.”


End file.
